A new, exciting
chapter in our campaign for a barrier-free Ontario now begins. This
Action Kit gives you ideas on what you can do in your community to help
this cause. You, our grassroots ODA supporters are what powers the ODA
movement! Use this Kit's ideas. Think of your own additional strategies,
use them, and let us know how they are working.

In this Action Kit
you will find:

* Priorities
for action by ODA supporters over the end of 2003 and early 2004
in our campaign for a barrier-free Ontario.

As we open this
new chapter in our campaign for a barrier-free Ontario, we have new
hope. Yet we must remain tenacious, active and vigilant. We must
make sure that the new Ontario Government keeps its word on the ODA
issue. As our backgrounder near the end of this Kit shows, there have
been early indications from the new Ontario Government that signal hope
that it will approach this issue with more good faith than did the previous
Conservative Government. Yet we still have much to do.

The new Liberal
Citizenship Minister, Dr. Marie Bountrogianni (new to her cabinet post)
is expected to launch a new consultation process on how to strengthen
the ODA. We need to present realistic proposals for strengthening the
ODA. We need to make sure the entire Liberal caucus and the public support
our agenda. Therefore our priorities over the next weeks and months
include:

(1) To individually
lobby each member of the Ontario Legislature from all political parties
to make sure that they support the strengthening of the ODA.

(2) To get as many people as possible ready to fully participate in
any Ontario Government's expected consultations on strengthening the
ODA.

(3) To keep doing what we can in the meantime to implement the existing
ODA, despite its limitations.

(4) To expand the public support for a strong, effective ODA to ensure
that the public supports tour agenda of strengthening the ODA.

The following practical
action tips address each of these priorities.

TIPS ON EDUCATING YOUR LOCAL MPP
ON THE ODA

Over the next weeks,
please visit or phone your local MPP, to educate and update them on
the ODA issue. If you would like a list of all MPPs and their contact
information, either email us at:

or check our website,
where it should be posted by some time in December 2003. If you need
a hard copy, contact us at the mailing address above.

Making personal
contact with MPPs individually either in person or by phone, is far
more effective at this stage than writing them. However any contact
with them in any form is always helpful.

If Your MPP is a
Liberal, we encourage you to thank them for their Party's election commitments
on the ODA. Give them examples of barriers you face. Remember that of
the 72 Liberal MPPs in the Legislature, fully 36 were just elected for
the first time. They were not in the Legislature over the past years,
pressing the previous Government for the ODA. They need you to explain
the history of this issue.

Educate the newcomers
on why we need a strong ODA. If your MPP is a re-elected Liberal, remind
them of their party platform and of the steps their party took in the
last Legislature to support the ODA cause. Below we give you references
to materials you might wish to print up to give them.

If your MPP is an
NDP member, we encourage you to thank their party for continuing to
support the ODA cause, and for their election commitments on the ODA.
Their ODA platform and the Liberals' were the same. Ask them to keep
supporting the ODA cause in the Legislature.

If your MPP is Conservative,
unfortunately they did not support strengthening the ODA in the 2003
election campaign. However, we encourage you to urge them to now support
efforts by the Liberals to strengthen the ODA, and not to oppose these.

To help you, you
might print up and bring with you some of the following important materials
to give to any MPP you meet:

1. The October
29 1998 ODA resolution unanimously passed, put forward on the ODA
Committee's behalf by Liberal Dwight Duncan (now the Minister) by
the Ontario Legislature adopting the ODA Committee's 11 principles
for the ODA to make it strong and effective:

2. The Liberals'
November 23, 2000 consultation tour report, describing what the Liberal
Party said the ODA needs to include. It was prepared by Liberal MPP
Steve Peters (now Minister of Agriculture) after he toured the province
in March 2000, holding public forums on the ODA issue:

5. The package
of amendments to the Conservatives' weak ODA 2001 that the Liberal
Party put forward on December 10, 2001, at the request of the ODA
movement, and that the Liberals have, at a minimum, promised to implement
to strengthen the ODA:

TIPS FOR PREPARING FOR THE EXPECTED
ONTARIO GOVERNMENT ODA CONSULTATION

Start thinking of
practical improvements that can be made to the ODA 2001 to make it strong
and effective. The strong consensus from the ODA movement is that it
needs to be improved so that it will make barrier removal and prevention
mandatory, not voluntary, so that it will extend its requirements to
the private sector not just the public sector, so that it will include
means for effective enforcement, and so that it will require the setting
of good accessibility standards.

To build on our
1998 Blueprint for the ODA and the detailed amendments that the ODA
Committee proposed in 2001, we need your ideas. Send your feedback to
us at the above address or at:

That Kit mainly
addresses barriers at the municipal government level. However, its ideas
can also be used when dealing with other public sector organizations
now covered by the ODA 2001, such as Ontario Government ministries,
colleges, universities, school boards, hospitals and public transit
providers.

Contact any of these
public sector organizations in your community. Ask them to send you
a copy of their accessibility plan which they were supposed to make
public by September 30, 2003.

Let the public sector
organization and the media know what you think of their plan. Monitor
to see if they are implementing it. Make suggestions for its improvement,
if needed.

TIPS FOR EXPANDING PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR A STRONG,
MANDATORY ODA

We need to keep
up grassroots efforts across Ontario at educating the public on the
need to strengthen the existing weak ODA to tear down the barriers that
block over 1.5 million Ontarians with disabilities from fully participating
in Ontario life. Seek out opportunities to make presentations to community
groups, religious congregations, business organizations, schools and
other groups. You can find lots of background material on the ODA on
the ODA committee's website. If you are really eager for more detailed
background, contact us to send you via email ODA Committee chair David
Lepofsky's 180-page publication giving the detailed 9-year history of
the ODA movement. Email us for it at:

Sorry, but we don't
have the resources to send out hard copies of that long document.

Even if you cannot
arrange to do a formal public presentation on the ODA issue, talk about
it with family and friends.

If you would like
something that is much, much shorter (around 1 page) that you can read,
hand out, and use to help educate the public, consider using the item
recently included in an Ontario high school textbook on the ODA. While
the text book is aimed at high school students taking a course in law,
this piece may be useful for audiences that are older, or who are not
specifically interested in law. You can download it from:

Encourage others
to get on our email list as well. We only add people to that list when
an individual personally asks to be added. We don't want to add people
to our ODA email list without their consent.

If your email or
snail mail address changes, let us know.

BACKGROUND - WHERE THE ODA MOVEMENT
NOW STANDS

In the fall of 2003,
a new chapter has begun in our 9-year campaign for a barrier-free Ontario
for persons with disabilities, now that Ontario's new Liberal Government
has taken office. Two years ago, after ODA supporters pressed for a
strong ODA to achieve a barrier-free Ontario to be passed, The previous
Conservative Government only passed a weak, limited ODA. That 2001 law
neither effectively required barriers to be removed nor had any effective
enforcement.

While in opposition,
the Liberal Party repeatedly pressed the Conservative Government to
pass a strong and effective ODA. In the recent provincial election,
the Liberals pledged in their April 7, 2003 letter to the ODA Committee
that they would pass a strong, effective and mandatory ODA within one
year of taking office. They promised that their ODA would fulfil the
ODA Committee's 11 principles to make it strong and effective. At a
minimum, they would pass the amendments to the ODA that we had proposed
back in 2001, that the Liberals put forward, and that the previous Conservative
Government defeated. They also committed to work together with the ODA
Committee to develop this new legislation.

Since recently taking
office, the Liberal Government has taken some positive initial steps
on the ODA issue. Just one week after the October 2, 2003 election,
Premier Dalton McGuinty spoke by phone with ODA Committee chair David
Lepofsky to initiate the dialogue on strengthening the ODA. In contrast,
the two previous Conservative Premiers, Mike Harris and Ernie Eves,
refused during their 8 years in power to ever meet or even speak with
the ODA Committee. In its November 20, 2003 Throne Speech, mapping out
its priorities in its first year in office, the Liberal Government committed
to work together with Ontarians with Disabilities on meaningful new
disability legislation.